Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;dougsmit, post: 1246815, member: 19463&quot;]While certainly coins with bronze disease should be cleaned, the fact remains that almost all ancient coins have been cleaned.&nbsp; The number of ancient coins that spent the last 2000 years in a bank vault or sock drawer approaches zero and the number that were sealed well enough in a pot that there was not even dust on them is not a lot greater.&nbsp; If you are a true believer in the &#039;never clean a coin&#039; mantra just realize that you can not collect ancient coins.&nbsp; I&#039;m really not sure when in history we start getting enough surviving coins that did not come from the ground that it is possible to be hardcore about untouched surfaces but I know it is after the period of anything I collect so it is not a practical possibility for me to collect with the same mentality that is so obvious with the US market for modern coins.&nbsp; The question is not whether a coin was cleaned but how well it fared in the process.&nbsp; It matters little whether it is raped and raw or caked with so much dirt that it can not be identified.&nbsp; Both are serious faults.&nbsp; In between there is a middle ground.&nbsp; No one alive today will live to see the oldest US coin half the age of the newest hammered coin from the middle ages.&nbsp; Perhaps in another 1700 years modern world and US collectors will understand the problem that ancient collectors know well.&nbsp; Does anyone know how PCGS slabs hold up after a millennium?[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in